“The Jordan Boys’ Legacy”

The penultimate episode of Lanterns takes a look into the past of Hal Jordan, while John and the Hal-ogram continue to try to discover the killer of Hal Jordan in 2026.

The show started off in 1975 and young Hal did not want to give up a baseball to another player who was replacing him on the mound. He was two outs from a complete game and the coach tried to remove him from the game. Young Hal would have nothing of it.

The baseball thing was, of course, a direct comparison to the ring that Hal did not want to give up either.

The Hal-ogram was fun as he encapsuled a happier, kinder, though still an asshole version of Hal Jordan with John. John wanted the Hal-ogram to use his voice to open the mysterious vault, but the construct wanted to meet the sheriff first.

After meeting Sheriff Kerry, Hal-ogram stated that she had killed him. Of course, the construct had also accused John of the same thing.

Later, Hal-ogram admitted that his own father had committed suicide and that maybe Hal Jordan had done the same thing. He called it the Jordan Boys’ Legacy, as apparently the grandfather killed himself too. Hal-ogram thought that maybe the guilt that he thought he saw in Kerry’s face was from her covering up the suicide, much like young Hal had done for his father.

They also found a portal to another planet. This was the same planet that the aliens from earlier this season who were searching for the Manhunter lived on and had been killed on by a poison gas. The gas nearly did in John too, but Hal-ogram was able to stop John from killing himself.

They came across Sinestro on the planet as well, leading into the finale next week.

I enjoyed the talking time between John and the construct and this made me wish there was more of this between John and the real Hal.

“Bad Optics”

John Stewart- grave robber.

After last week’s major conclusion of the 2016 storyline, we find ourselves back in 2026 to continue that story that dropped in episode one.

Hal Jordan is dead. Shot in the head.

There were a lot of speculation that Hal was not really dead from the online pundits, but that seemed to be definitively put to bed with this episode.

I really have some questions about John’s motives in this episode and the town’s anger and resentment toward Hal. We learned that Hal and Kerry had a relationship after she split with her husband. John had come back to Rushville because his mother had told him that Hal wanted to apologize. That was a surprise to Hal. John hit him, perhaps breaking Hal’s nose in the process.

We learned that Hal was shot point blank in the head, which was an odd situation. Just off the top of my head (poor pun there) I am guessing that Noah is the one who killed Hal. That would make sense why someone could get that close to Hal to kill him.

John Stewart contacted Guy Gardner with the Green Lantern-signal, which is in the middle of the town, provided by Guy. However, a bunch of men showed up, including Billy, Kerry’s ex-husband, to threaten John. John kicked all of their butts, and eventually ended up in jail for assault.

Guy showed up as John was behind bars. John asked Guy to retrieve Hal’s suit and decommissioned ring so they could bury him in it. Gardner was not anxious to help, seeing as that he would have to fly to Oa to get it. He wound up doing it after all because John had told him that everything he had was because John had refused the ring.

Guy dropped the piece of info that Sinestro had escaped from the space prison. He also confirmed the existence of the Phantom Zone in the DCU.

Carol Ferris made a debut in the episode as well. Carol had a previous connection to Hal Jordan, specifically a main love interest in the actual comic books. She apparently had become the Star Sapphire in the comics, which I did not realize since I do not collect the Green Lantern books.

John, Carol and Kerry were the only ones in attendance at the funeral, and they did bury Hal, only for John to come back at night and dig him up to retrieve the ring.

Did not see that coming.

I kept waiting for the ring to fly off Hal’s hand and choose John, especially as John was reading Hal’s handwritten eulogy. This scene reminded me of the episode of The Boys where Hughie read the letter written by Frenchie.

Of course, the ring had 5% power left for some reason and John used it to bring back the Hal-ogram with the intention of using it to help solve the murder.

Two more episodes remaining.

Spoilers

“Trust Fall”

Episode two of DC’s Lantern’s series stuck it out in the 2016 timeline, leaving last week’s shocking conclusion during 2026 for a later date.

Instead, the episode split Hal and John into different places. John is sent to retrieve the Lantern to charge the power ring, and Hal sticks around to go see Macon again.

Hal ends up getting shot as a warning and John gets nabbed and dragged away when we hear the term “Manhunters” for the first time.

I know enough about Lantern lore to say that this is not the Martian Manhunter, aka J’onn J’onzz, but not much more after that so I am curious to find out what this piece of DC history is all about.

The show brought out some awesome Green Lantern stuff this episode. First, as I mentioned, they showed us the power charging Lantern that Hal needed to recharge the power on his ring. It was stored in a cool pocket-dimension found in Hal Jordan’s house.

Second, we get to see the Green Lantern costumes. There were three of them hanging in Hal’s closet. Hal did not seem overly anxious to put it back on.

However, third, he did put it back on and he flew into space to a satellite of some kind where we meet, for the first time, Sinestro. Sinestro is Green Lantern’s arch enemy, and is being played by Ulrich Thomsen.

John Stewart could not fly when using the ring, but he was able to create a bird that followed him the whole episode, even when he did not have the ring on, even when he was unconscious after being snatched at Hal’s house. I get a feeling that the bird has a deeper meaning for down the road.

I am excited about the mysteries of the show, and I am wondering when we will be heading back to 2026. Next week looks to be a John Stewart-centric episode with more of his past coming to [Green Lantern’s] Light.